Freelancer Epilogue
by BenRG
Summary: Just a little idea that came into my head for a link between Season 10 and what I would like to see in Season 10. Ensemble piece.


**Red vs. Blue – Freelancer Epilogue**

_By BenRG_

* * *

**Disclaimer**

Red vs. Blue is a web-based video show created by Rooster Teeth LLC and based on the video game Halo, which is a property of the Microsoft Corporation. This is a non-profit fan-work for free distribution through the World-Wide Web.

**Author's Notes**

This is just a bit of vanity on my part. It's set a few days after the events in Episode 22 of Season 10 of the show. It is meant to be a linking series of scenes bringing us from the end of the Freelancer Saga to whatever it is follows…

You have to be reasonably familiar with the show in its entirety to get some of the jokes but newbies should be able to find their way.

Official type designations come from Halopedia. Any errors in such technical details are theirs, not mine.

**Censor: T – For the crew's potty mouths**

**The Story**

The humanoid robot known as Lopez the Heavy considered the condition of the team's two (stolen) M12 Warthog Fast Attack Vehicles. Both of them had seen better days. This particular one, for some reason had apparently been used as a battering ram. What was the point of his straining his systems day after day trying to keep the team's equipment working when they would just find new ways to break stuff?

If Lopez had a face beneath the replica of the helmet of a Mark-VI powered assault armour suit, he would have scowled. As it was, the only way he could show his displeasure at his current situation was to thump the nearby plasticrete wall of Red Base with his heavy-duty wrench.

"De nuevo al cuadrado uno, parece!" he grated out in his monotone voice. _Back to square one, it seems._ No one knew it… well, the artificial intelligence designated 'Epsilon' but which the meat-sacks referred to as 'Church' probably knew but wasn't saying… but Lopez was perfectly capable of speaking in Standard English. He just spoke Spanish to irritate his human 'masters', one of the only forms of rebellion of which he was capable, thanks to all the safety protocols his builder had included in his programming.

With a sigh, Lopez looked around the motor pool. As well as the two Warthogs currently under repair, also present was the captured Covenant type-32 rapid attack vehicle known as a 'Ghost' and an M274 Ultra-Light All-Terrain Vehicle ('Mongoose'), belonging to the renegade former Freelancer designated as 'Carolina'. At the other end of the box canyon were the team's M808 Scorpion battle-tank and their (stolen) UH-144 Falcon transport aircraft. Overall, having to work with such a massive range of advanced technology would normally make a repair robot nearly overload with anticipatory joy but, in Lopez's case, he felt only a certain lingering disgust. It wasn't that he didn't _like_ the job for which he was designed; he just didn't like the humans with whom he had to work. It struck him as incredibly ironic that this collection of misfits and idiots were actually considered by some to be _heroes_!

With an inarticulate electronic growl, Lopez kicked the tyre of the nearest Warthog. "¡Debo nunca haber hecho ese respaldo!" he spat out (or the electronic equivalent). _I should never have made that back-up!_ To think that he had come close to the bliss of permanent deactivation only to have it snatched away by his pre-programmed disaster recovery protocols!

His momentary pique sated, Lopez turned back to his work. He would do a fine job and get all these vehicles back to factory specification, even if only to spite the humans with his efficiency in the face of their idiocy!

* * *

"So, will I ever dance ballet again, Doc?"

Corpsman Frank du Fresne, aka 'Doc', stood back from his patient and chuckled. "Well, I don't know about dancing, but that pistol wound is fully healed, Donut! You'd hardly believe that you were ever injured!"

To the left of the small examination chair (something lifted from a Dentist's office of all things), Staff Sargent Maxwell 'Sarge' Sargent scowled at the effeminate grin on the face of the infantryman in pink… no, _lightish-red_ Mark-VI armour. "So, is he fit for duty?"

The combat medic nodded proudly. "I have to say I did a great job! He's practically the perfect physical specimen!"

PFC Franklin Donut grinned proudly at the praise. "I could have told you that a long time ago! You only have to look at the photo-shoot I did during my last leave in that naturist colony!" Doc and Donut both laughed merrily at this quip.

Somehow, Sarge managed to restrain the urge to shoot one or both of these irritants. "Great!" he growled, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "My day just keeps on getting better!"

The purple-armoured pacifist combat medic helped Donut get out of the chair, both men grinning at each other in a way that made Sarge wonder exactly what they were doing during their weeks alone together at Valhalla. Shaking his head, the former ODST pulled on his helmet, unslung his M-90A shotgun and strode out of the room that they had set aside as Doc's medical bay.

"He seems a bit tense!" Donut murmured as his superior made his exit. "Do you think I should give him an aromatherapy massage?"

Doc was smart enough to have seen the anger in Sarge's light blue eyes. "Maybe you should let him cool off in his own time, Donut."

* * *

Sarge stormed out of the medical bay, sweeping around the inner courtyard of Red Base past the limp Red Army flag. The long-term truce with the Blues (mostly from the fact that they _all_ now knew that there never had actually been a Red verses Blue war) he understood and could support. Having to co-operate with the Blues (including their pet Freelancers) he could _tolerate_. Somehow, though, Donut and Doc's camp metrosexual double-act always set his teeth on edge.

The veteran soldier ascended the steps up to the battlements and paused. Actually, there was something else about life at Blood Gulch that got on his nerves and, right now, they were on the battlements proving that simply being where you were ordered to be did not by any scale represent 'being on guard'.

With another shake of his head, the red-armoured warrior jumped back into the courtyard and headed out to the motor pool. He never understood _exactly_ what Lopez was saying, but he always got the gist and that made for truly rewarding conversations with his creation.

* * *

"Hey, Grif?"

PFC Dexter Grif turned his head to look at the maroon-armoured man who, against all his expectations, was one of his closest friends in the universe. He took a moment to bring his brain back from 'standing nap', which was the closest he got to being 'on guard'. "Yeah Simmons?"

PFC Dick Simmons paused before uttering a _very_ familiar question. "Do you ever wonder why we're here?"

There was a long pause before Grif finally responded in a low, angry growl. "Every day, Simmons. Every… fucking… day." The orange-armoured soldier began to pace restlessly, waving his arms in frustration. That alone told Simmons just how angry his friend was – Grif very rarely moved unless absolutely necessary. "I mean, when Wash gave that Chairman guy those data chips about Project Freelancer, he said we were big fucking heroes! So why the fuck are we still stuck out here in this nowhere box canyon?"

Grif would probably have had other things to worry about if he'd realised his head was precisely centred in the crosshairs of an SRS-99D sniper rifle. "_So, where the fuck is our big fucking reward?_" his voice squawked out of the speakers fed by the parabolic microphone that was part of the rifle's select-zoom electronic sights.

"Right on target! You're already pretty good with that weapon, Sister!"

The auburn haired former trailer trash looked up at her new mentor and favourite person in the world with a broad smile. "Well, it isn't as if I've had anything to do myself over the last six months! After that rat Lopez ran off and left me here, I've had nothing to do but bulls-eye whatever critters are runnin' around!"

Private Kaikaina 'Sister' Grif was kneeling on the ridge running around one of the long sides of the box canyon. Standing behind her, Michelle Church, formerly and still known by her Freelancer code-name of Agent Carolina, smiled beneath her cyan 'Rogue' helmet as she absorbed the girl's paradoxical mix of cynicism and innocence. It reminded her a little of South, in better times... Carolina shook her head to come back to here-and-now. _Look to the future, not the past!_ she reminded herself, not for the first time.

Sister looked away from her rifle's sniper 'scope and down at her new armour uncertainly. Everyone had told her it was coloured 'aqua'; to her, it looked maroon. "Um… 'Lina? Are you sure this stuff is blue?"

Carolina sighed. According to Doc's scans, the girl had damage to her visual cortex (possibly due to a near-drowning in her early teen years) that closely replicated the genetic disease known as colour blindness. She was fully-functional despite it… so long as no-one asked her to defuse any bombs… or maybe paint something any colour but grey. "I'm sure, Sister. Why would Tucker have any colour armour than blue?"

Sister nodded, acknowledging the point. "It was cool of Tucker letting me have his new armour customised for me! I know he loved this suit!" There was a long pause before the girl continued in a hopeful voice that reminded Carolina just how _young _she actually was. "Hey, 'Lina? If a guy lets a girl have his best suit of armour… is that love?"

Carolina didn't roll her eyes, even behind the guaranteed camouflage of her helmet; oestrogen solidarity and all that. Instead, with a similarly invisible poisonous smirk, she answered aloud. "I think that would only be the case if Wash had asked him beforehand and he agreed… and that was about as likely as Wash being happy with me taking the Sniper without telling him!"

"Oh." Sister didn't really 'get' the continual borderline-confrontational teasing and taunting between the two former Freelancers and didn't really care enough to try. Instead, she turned her attention back to her weapon and retargeted on a certain orange helmet. "So, can I shoot my asshole brother now?"

"No, Sister, you can't. As unlikely as it seems, we might actually need him."

"What?! That isn't physically possible!"

* * *

"_Targeting sensor calibration sequence is complete, Epsilon_."

Church didn't have a mouth; he'd _never_ had a mouth. However, thanks to Wash and Carolina, he knew what it felt like and it pleased him to imagine that he was gritting his teeth with strained patience. "_Sheila, for fuck's sake, my name is 'Church', for the ten-thousandth time!_"

The M-808Z's huge turret swung around to align with the small, glowing blue-white figure of a soldier in Mark-V armour with a sniper rifle that was hovering to one side. Despite the lack of any face, Church got the strange feeling that Sheila was _frowning_ at him in disapproval. "_The name 'Church' can be used to identify one of the following: Dr Leonard L Church, former director of Project Freelancer, now deceased; the remnant of the Alpha AI unit, now deleted; Freelancer Michelle Church, whose proper communications designation is 'Agent Carolina'. You are none of those individuals._"

Church really didn't have the patience to explain _again_ how his personality algorithm was essentially an evolved duplicate of a young Leonard Church; the team's resident AI autopilot never got it anyway. Instead, he tried a bit of lateral thinking. "_It's just a designation, for ease of reference. Just like you're a FILSS unit but we call you 'Sheila'._"

"_Processing… Understood; in all communications the Freelancer AI Unit Epsilon is to be referred to as 'Church'. Protocol encoded on database._"

_And thank the deity of your choice for that_, Church thought sourly. Okay, so he was a lot more than both the human male who used that name and the badly-fragmented AI that had also used the name but he couldn't have the name 'Epsilon' flying about on open communications frequencies. The Chairman might have _said_ he was satisfied with the data on Tex's dog-tags but he knew that the bureaucrat would love to have a fully-functional Freelancer AI available to his attempts to rebuild the project.

"_Church?_" The avatar of the AI looked up again, startled from his introspection by the autopilot's suddenly-quiet voice.

"What is it Sheila?"

"_I am… troubled by the silence from my sisters._"

Church would have blinked in surprise if he could. He hadn't thought of that. Before he'd finally capped himself, the late, unlamented Dr Church had ordered all Freelancer computers to purge their files. This included the several dozen Freelancer Integrated Logistics and Security System AIs that operated various vehicles and facilities. Damaged and in storage mode, Sheila had never received the 'purge' order. It meant that several nearly-identical 'sisters', with whom she was once connected over the communications grid and with whom she doubtless regularly communicated, were no longer there. "_I'm sorry, Sheila. We've all lost people to that old fucktard's mania_."

Sheila continued after a moment. "_Although I was one of a long production run, all the FILSS units were allocated to Project Freelancer. It appears that… I am the last unit of that type operational_."

Church sighed. "_Sheila… all my brothers and sisters are gone too_." Frankly, he couldn't shed a tear for some of them – Omega, Sigma and Gamma particularly – but he missed Delta's calm, reasonable deliberation, Theta's cheery innocence and the simple _existence_ of Beta. The memory echoes in his databanks were no substitute for those lost kin. "_I can handle that because I've got friends. Carolina, Wash, hell, even Tucker, Caboose, Sister and the Reds! They may not be Freelancer AIs like me, but they're good people really. Having them around…? Well, you're never alone when you have friends, _especially_ friends like them_." Church paused for a long moment before continuing hurriedly. "_And if you tell anyone that I said that, I will _totally_ deny it._"

Sheila didn't chuckle. Her relatively primitive polymorphic algorithm didn't allow for more than the crudest simulation of emotions. However, she did suddenly note a complete equation where it was previously incomplete; something a human would call 'a connection'. She decided to verify her conclusions. "_Church?_"

"_Yeah, Sheila?_"

"_Do you… consider me to be your friend?_"

Church moved his avatar closer to the turret and reached out, seeming to caress the tank's turret-mounted targeting sensors. "_Always, Sheila. Always._"

"_That is good to know._" There was a pause before Sheila continued in a louder tone. "_Now I believe that we should start diagnostics on the weapons overrides._"

* * *

"_Tucker, where the fuck is the sniper rifle?_"

Standing outside the armoury in Blue Base, PFC Lavernius Tucker smirked to himself as he continued his _kata_ of practice swipes, thrusts and parries with his energy sword. He turned back to the armoury's closed door to reply to the call from within. "Probably the same place as my fucking armour, Wash!"

The armoury's armoured door slid open and the cobalt-and-yellow-clad form of David Harrison, Agent Washington or just 'Wash', stepped out. "Tucker, for the ten-thousandth time, Sister's armour was totalled by those acid pellets Lopez shot her with! The air on this planet's too thin for us to go without our helmets outside for too long. If we wanted Sister to be useful to the unit, she needed a new set of armour! And guess who had a spare set?"

Tucker scowled down at his teal armour in some annoyance. "Why did you have to give her my new armour, though, Wash? You could have given her this set and I'd never have shed a tear!"

"Because your new set was a Mark-VIC, which could be easily modified to fit a female form! This old Mark-VIA isn't compatible with the customisation machinery!" Wash patted the other soldier on the shoulder in a show of brotherly comfort. "Tucker, if it makes you feel better, just remind yourself that Sister needed that suit and, by giving it to her, you were taking one for the team!" Wash stood back and scowled. "Now, where the hell do you get off, issuing equipment without my say-so?"

Tucker smirked again; Wash liked to think he was the boss and it was always Tucker's pleasure to undermine that delusion. "Well, Carolina said that she was going to give Sister equipment familiarisation training with the sniper rifle today!"

Wash's scowl behind the faceplate of his helmet only deepened. "Damn it, Tucker! I needed that thing today!"

"Well! Now it's _you_ who's taking one for the team!"

Wash growled under his breath and reminded himself, again, that Tucker was a valuable soldier and a friend and that he thus was not allowed to blow the little fucker's brains out. "You know what, Tucker? I fucking hate you."

Tucker sighed nostalgically at those familiar and reassuring words. "Yeah, man, I fucking hate you too!"

The two men turned from the armoury and strode out into the courtyard, past the old Blue Army flag, fluttering in the light breeze that was just starting to pick up as the day progressed. They ascended the stairs onto the battlements. "Anything to report, Caboose?" Wash rapped out.

The royal blue-armoured baby-faced village idiot of the team swung around the huge M-41 Light Anti-Air Gun turret that he was manning. There was a long, dangerous pause as the younger soldier observed Wash and Tucker through the Gatling gun's sights. Finally he spoke. "When I hold my hands up in the air for a long time, my fingers start to tingle!"

"Great," Wash couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice, not that Caboose would notice. "What about the Reds?" After several months of playing 'capture the flag' at Valhalla, Wash had developed a certain Simulation Soldier-like paranoia about the other team.

Caboose looked over his shoulder at Red Base and shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, they're just running around their base, talking, arguing and doing stuff!"

Tucker was focussed on the LAAG, the deadly muzzles of which were still unerringly pointed in their direction. Even inside the artificially-maintained body-temperature bio-gel body-suit, he was starting to sweat. "Caboose, could you point that fucking thing elsewhere?"

Caboose considered this. "Even when I'm talking to you?"

"Well, as we don't ever really want you to talk to us ever again, you don't have to point that thing at us ever again, do you?"

Caboose's eyes narrowed behind his glare visor as he considered Tucker's words. Then, finally, he spoke. "OKAY!" he chirped cheerfully and traversed the gun back towards Red Base.

After a moment, Tucker turned to Wash. "Hey, Wash? What do you think's gonna happen to us?"

Wash smiled slightly. "I'm not worried. Didn't the Chairman say that we were heroes?" Wash still thought that the bureaucrat's cheerful declaration that 'all your debts are paid, Agent Washington' was one of the sweetest phrases he'd ever heard.

Tucker was excited at the thought of recognition. "Heroes? Does that mean we'll get medals, a parade and a flight home?"

"Nah, I'm not _that_ naïve!" Wash snorted and smiled. "But we _are_ heroes and you don't just throw heroes away or waste them on menial duties! You find a _special_ use for them that reflects their skills and their value to you! One way or another, Tucker, I think that things are looking up! It's gonna be smooth sailing and cool duties from here on in!" Wash shook his head. "Anyway, let's get over to Red Base and pick up a Warthog. I want to check out Zanzibar today; make sure no unwelcome visitors have moved in."

* * *

Far away from Blood Gulch, in the middle of a vast desert, lay a ruined ancient temple known to the human inhabitants of the planet as Sand Trap. Here, the race known only as The Forerunners had stored many of their secrets. Because of that, the opposing forces of Project Charon and Project Freelancer had clashed here, leaving many dead. This struggle had been further complicated by the interference of cultists from the alien Sangheili race.

Now, the fighting was over and the sand was slowly reclaiming the only recently-uncovered Temple buildings and also the M313 Elephant recovery vehicle brought by the Freelancer excavation team. Whatever secrets were here seemed now likely to soon be lost again.

However, there was something new here to break the quiet stillness. A Covenant Type-31 'Seraph' long-range fighter sat on top of the flat roof of one of the temple buildings. There was a cough and several abortive growls from an engine that someone was trying to turn over. Finally, the powerful engine of a Type-25 Rapid Assault Vehicle (known to humans as a 'Brute Chopper') caught and roared into life.

The massive monocycle with anti-gravity stabilisers pushed its way out of the sand-dune where the last, clumsy manoeuvre by Tucker had left it half-buried and began to power away across the desert to the distant ocean.

Soon enough, it was coming ashore at Zanzibar, roaring up the beach, past the old wind power station, dating from the first human attempts to colonise and terraform this less-than-ideal world a century previously. The Brute Chopper turned inland, moving into light woods and past the ruined and abandoned fortress of High Ground, where the traitorous Freelancer known as South Dakota had met her end.

Following the river inland, the Brute Chopper approached ever more hilly and sandy ground. Finally, it accelerated up a steep slope, away from the river as it entered a certain useless box canyon, one that contained two frontier bases, each emplaced seemingly for no other reason than to prevent the other side from controlling this bit of useless real estate.

The Chopper halted on the ridge overlooking Blood Gulch, it's driver watching as Wash and Tucker set off down the length of the box canyon, crossing the river that divided what was once 'Red' territory from 'Blue'. The driver's eyes narrowed when it saw the familiar teal armour worn by one of those soldiers. That told him that, after too long, he had finally found the humans he was looking for. They and they alone could aid him in his sacred task. They and they alone were the true Champions of The Chosen One.

Now, at long last, The Prophecy could be fulfilled.

Junior stepped off of the vehicle and walked to the edge of the cliff, looking down on his childhood home. He raised his head and called out to his father as loudly as he could, his alien voice echoing off of the canyon walls.


End file.
